Hello All,
Sorry for the long post.
I read a comment from another reader and it mentioned "A Clockwork Orange" and the attitudes of men in it seeming monstrous and misogynistic. That book is considered a "classic" and it's been on my to-read list. I no longer want to read it.
This reminded me of another such book - "Catch 22".
It took me a long time to get around to reading it, and I started it several times before actually getting into it, and in that time, many people told me how much they enjoyed the book. I'm not American, but I lived in the US for a while, and a colleague told me they read the book in high school. NOT ONE person told me about all the misogyny in the book. I searched the reviews on goodreads and out of thousands, less than 100 reviews mentioned misogyny or sexism. Why? Yes, the book is a fun book otherwise, but it has so much casual sexual assault being committed by men on women, and no one mentions it or bats an eyelid. It blew my mind that this classic, which has literally led to the creation of a term that much of the english-speaking world uses, has so much misogyny in it, and no one discusses it. Am I insane? Am I being too sensitive here?
One positive finding: The people who made the book into a limited tv-series did mention that they were blown away by the misogyny in it and they took those bits out. But I had to go looking for someone discussing the misogyny in this book to find that.
There are other such stories and shows, that if I look at critically now, I'm astounded by all the sexism and misogyny that is baked into them, that I didn't see or ignored. A few examples:
How I Met Your Mother: I won't even go into the character of Barney, who I'm appalled I ever thought could be considered acceptable. But here's an incident involving the "decent" guy Marshall - His wife Lily is pregnant and supposedly suffering from "pregnancy brain" (is that a thing?) and Robin tells Marshall to not try to convince Lily into making any big decisions because that would be like "taking advantage of a drunk chick." Marshall agrees, but then convinces Lily to do something small that she would otherwise not do, and justifies it by saying "yes you shouldn't take advantage of a drunk chick, but you'd be a fool if you didn't at least cop a feel".
No. No. No. No. No. NO. This is rape culture. Women don't exist to be used for whatever any given male can manage to get out of them. "Copping a feel" is closer to being as bad as having sex with someone who's too drunk, than it is to doing nothing. There is more such stuff, but this has stayed in my mind.
That 70's Show - I watched this growing up and it can be very funny. But I watched it again as a grown-up and now I can't help but feel continually icked out by the constant objectification of girls and women and the crossing of their boundaries by teenage boys being seen as cute and harmless. It makes the lives of real female people terrifying. It is not cute and harmless. Showing the experience of sexuality of young males doesn't need normalizing the violation of female boundaries. It teaches them it's okay and harmless and it teaches us to put up with it because it's "normal".
The Big Bang Theory - While all the characters (male in particular) are kind of shitty and treat women as prizes and objects to covet, the character of Howard is breath-takingly creepy and pervy. The show acknowledges that but again portrays it as if it's a weird little personality quirk rather than full blown misogyny.
The Mindy Project - The lead character Mindy's main relationship with Danny is so so so so horribly sexist and isn't called out at all. There's too much for me to list here, but one example is how he insists that Mindy not work after they have a son, even though she's a doctor and has worked hard on her career, and really wants to work.
Book - The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy - This is one of my favourite books and continues to be so. It doesn't have any blatant misogyny or sexism in it that I recall, but I can't help but feel struck by how the characters are literally traversing the entire galaxy and the only significant female characters are the love-interests and daughters of the protagonist, and "the triple breasted whore of Eroticon Six". A man wrote the book and, somehow, none of the roles which didn't have to do with a relationship with a man, could be female? It shows me that men, even authors I adore, often simply can't see women as whole people.
I'm sure there's tons more in mainstream media that we watch and ignore or don't even notice. I want to avoid reading and watching things that have such blatant misogyny. At the very least I want to start noticing it and talking about it more. I know I'll be a killjoy in most circles, but I want to not ignore it anymore.
I'd love to hear examples and experiences in this regard from everyone.
I also wonder if the reverse (same dehumanizing treatment of males) is happening a lot in shows and books and movies and I simply haven't noticed it because I'm primed to spot misogyny. I'd love to hear about that too. In general I tend to counter anything that tries to make any personality trait contingent on being a man or a woman.
Thanks!
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